Amber is silent no matter what he does, and he hates it. He’d warned her not to make a sound because that’s what she does – little gasping mewls, his name under her breath, hips bucking, spine arching, moaning wantonly – making a show of being human, making him feel accomplished, desired.

(Loved.)

But now just she lies there, a dead fish impassively watching the tent flap while Hei drools all over himself trying to get a rise out of her. It’s his own fault for breaking the spell, which only makes it worse.He hadn’t expected it to hurt like this.

2: Sex Pollen - Two For The Price Of One

“Wait!” Hei freezes, not moving another inch until she says: “The next room is filled with gas.”

He turns back. “Effects?”

“Uncontrollable lust.”

His eyes widen – (he’d been a virgin) – then narrow. “Did I die?”

“We were too far gone too quickly for that.”

(Amber is still wet with him.)

“...Pai?” he whispers.

“Fine when we finally got there.”

He frowns. “Then why – ?”

“You were upset, Hei. It was too sudden.”

She’d actually felt dirty. He looks like he’s never seen her before.

Eventually, hesitantly: “Pai’s really fine?”

“Yes.”

Slowly, he kisses her swollen lips (again) and tugs her into the room.

Author's Note: It’s important to note with this one that to hell with season two, okay? Okay. :)

3: Spanking - The Care and Feeding of Your Chosen One

The sound of the slap echoes loudly in the sudden silence. Amber looks up right on time to watch his rage give way to horror, and laugh.

“Finally!”

Hei recoils. She grabs his wrist, yanks him into a kiss, biting until the darkness creeps back into his eyes.

“Never.” She laughs through stiff jaws. “This was simply the most efficient way. No lasting damage. You’ll see.”

“Keep bluffing.”

His hands shake against her stomach; Amber pulls them under her jacket. In response, he entwines their legs more tightly and burrows his face into her hair, his shivers rolling through her back.

And eventually, his hands cup her breasts.

“Ha,” she says, grinding her ass into him. “You realize this only makes it more likely I did it on purpose, right?”

Gasping, he grinds back. “Shut up.”

5: Grooming (Hair) - The Softest Noose

“Keeping your hair this long is idiotic.” There’s no heat to it; Hei’s fingers are still combing gently through the pale green strands, picking out jungle debris. “Why not cut it? It’s not like Contractors are attached to things like this.”

Groaning in appreciation, Amber relaxes further against his drawn-up shins.

“One day –” He gathers up her hair, winds it around his fist, and coaxes her head back until their eyes meet. “– it’ll get you killed. Just like this.”

His other hand closes around her throat. Her lips part in shivering anticipation and, invited, he leans down to claim them.

6: D/s - Turnabout

He’s no longer the boy who’d be told to walk through fire and obeyed without hesitation; she’s no longer the commander he followed. She paid for this last life with that power.

One last chance. One. No more watching him burn twenty-seven times so the twenty-eighth sees him through okay.

Amber’s fallible again, and whether it’s through regression or evolution, sometimes the thought of those lost twenty-seven makes her hands shake, her throat close.

But Hei is now a man who’d walk through fire for her anyway, and he’ll pin her down and give the orders whenever she needs it.

7: Touch Starvation - An Island

The fundamental truth, the one it always comes down to in the end, is: Contractors don’t care.

Even Pai: he holds her while she sleeps, he bleeds and kills for her – and she brushes him off the moment she wakes. They’ve been inseparable since the day they left home-family-normalcy behind and Hei is so fucking lonely.

No wonder all Amber has to do is squeeze his shoulder to take his breath away, hug him tight to have him all but collapse into her, knees weak and shivering all over.

No wonder he’s in love from the first, calculated Contractor kiss.

8: Sensual Massage - Happy Middles

“This is not –” Amber gasps in delight. “– what I asked for.”

Hei snorts – “So?” – and continues trailing kisses up her back. She’s ticklish at the base of her neck; he noses there while his hand slips from the globe of her arse again, under the towel, between her legs. His other hand, trapped beneath her body, cups her breast.

“I’m not sure I can afford this,” she bemoans.

But Hei breathes “It’s on the house,” in her ear, and whoever had decided to send them undercover in a massage parlour to ambush the target deserves a raise just for that.

She expects something practical; maybe an invitation to spar, map out her strengths and weaknesses.

“You were magnificent,” he whispers instead, as if confessing something dreadful. “Didn’t know you could move like that. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

You taught me, the very first time around, Amber doesn’t say. Too dangerous.

Now you know what you look like to me when you fight, Amber doesn’t say, as they align their bodies. Too cruel.

10: Under The Influence / Begging - In Vino Veritas

It’s the first time he’s ever felt like he’s got it together more than Amber. Rip-roaring drunk, she’s talking gibberish about things that never happened, voice slurred and hands clumsy; he keeps having to pull her out of the way of lampposts and potholes and people.

He’s not sure he likes it.

She stumbles on the last step to their assigned quarters, heavy against him.

“Hei?” Turning, her eyes are wide and glazed and – and beseeching. “God, you’re beautiful.” Her fingers tremble against his cheek. “Please?”

She’s never said ‘please’ before. She’s never once asked, period.

“Please.”

He likes it.

11: Humiliation - Somebody Wrote ‘Gullible’ On The Ceiling

Their captors have deduced Hei isn’t a Contractor, but nothing about Pai and Amber’s contracts. They might, if Pai doesn’t wake up soon; Hei and Amber can’t distract – deceive – the inexperienced mind-reader forever.

“The boy’s a lousy soldier, soft-hearted, squeamish, but he’s pathetically desperate. He’ll do anything the woman asks for affection and approval. She only keeps him around for sex.”

Amber keeps laughing, like the mind-reader’s power is tickling her, but Hei feels it like a cold, slimy tongue in his brain.

That’s the only reason there are tears creeping down his cheeks. Disgust; violation.

It’s deception.

That’s all.

12: Time Travel / Threesome - Last Will And Testament

Misaki thinks she’d feel more threatened by Hei’s desperate passion when he kisses Amber, buries himself in her, pours fevered prayers into her skin, if it wasn’t so heartbreakingly clear they were only trying to say goodbye.

Misaki doesn’t know how Amber’s power made tonight happen, but she knows women’s bodies. She presses one kiss to Hei’s shoulder and dozens to Amber’s throat, breasts, belly. A slender hand finds Misaki’s hip and wanders. Their mouths, in the end, both taste of Hei.

Amber doesn’t usually play coy – theirs is a wonderfully low-effort arrangement – but when she does, oh boy.

“Okay, but just the tip,” she giggles, when she already has him pinning her to the table, smooth thighs wrapped around his waist, and it must be that time again because what.

“What?”

She sighs. “You need to watch more porn.”

“No I don’t,” Hei says, because she may be his first-last-and-only but where would he even find any?

“This is no fun if I have to coach you through it. Fine then, go on.” She grins. “But just the tip.”

Oh, boy.

14: Uniform Kink - Bold Soldier Boy

Stateless, abnormal, Contractors go dressed more like athletes than soldiers. There’s no mistaking human troops for Contractor operatives or vice versa. Hei being a notable exception; human but equally adrift, he wasn’t accepted into any of the forces that trained him.

Yet today, he’s wearing the dress uniform of one.

“Not now,” he warns, catching Amber’s eye. “I have a meeting to make.”

He’s not worried about diseases; Contractors are too sensible to risk that. He’s not worried about pregnancy; she’d get rid of it without a second thought, or the Syndicate would do it for her.

But Hei is worried.

He’s worried because Amber wants it like this at all – wants him like this. Skin-to-skin, fully undressed, and unprotected. Quick and oversensitive, messy, risky. Entirely sub-optimal, performance-wise. She wants to be kissed breathless, see his face when he spills himself inside her, be held all night.

He’s worried that one day, he’ll start believing she wants him the way he wants her.